


Something Chivalrous

by SuspiciousLampshade (FluffyHippogriff)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Happy Ending, Implied Child Abuse, Implied Mpreg, Implied Violence, M/M, Mpreg, OCs - Freeform, Post Mpreg, Post-Canon, but not really, companion story, kind of cracky, kind of sad, part of kylux-fic-hell, questionable leadership, questionable life choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6216361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffyHippogriff/pseuds/SuspiciousLampshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our favorite space idiots have finally settled down into domestic life.  Kylo Ren is now simply Ben, happily married to former First Order General Hux, who is a proud father of three.  They've adapted to the Resistance, and are hoping to enjoy a life that, while not exactly peaceful, is at least fairly consistent and safe. </p><p>And then along come the Knights of Ren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion work to the "Something" series from http://kylux-fic-hell.tumblr.com/, who kindly gave me permission to post this madness. They are lovely and their works are full of fluff. Also I blame them entirely for this, because without their hard work, I'd...still be sinning, realistically, but in another fandom. Basically, this is what would happen if the Knights of Ren decided to come after Ren, without knowing that he'd gotten knocked up and gone home to mama Leia with Hux. It's set a while after the end of "Something Worthy." I wasn't clever enough to come up with a good title, so I just made a reference to the fact that it's about people that call themselves Knights. I tried to stay fairly consistent with how Hux and Ben are portrayed in the other stories, but I'm worried a bit of snark might have sneaked in. Oh well. I'd apologize for the Knights' portrayal too, but since we know next to nothing about them, I'm working with what I've got, which is a couple of pictures on the Internet and a borrowed name from http://kylux-fic-hell.tumblr.com/'s fic "Jealousy." Yeah...enjoy!

From the moment that Kylo Ren had sauntered into his life with a swish of black fabric and an overly-dramatic huff of annoyance, Hux should have realized he’d never again have a true moment of peace.

First there was the extensive amount of fighting at the start of their relationship, which involved more broken consoles and disciplinary write-ups than Hux would really care to admit. Between their efforts to actively kill one another and their passive-aggressive attempts to sabotage the other’s political agenda, Hux had probably lost five years of his life and gained at least one ulcer from the stress. Adding sex to the equation was supposed to have helped calm their issues, but obviously only gave rise to further problems. Their budding romance, lost child, and subsequent escape from the First Order had no doubt taken a few more years from the redhead and added another ulcer. Raising a child within the Resistance while simultaneously trying to prove your loyalty to said-Resistance (particularly difficult, given the fact that he’d joined this particular military group after defecting from another) brought sleepless nights, frequent headaches, and an ever-present cloud of self-doubt hanging over Hux’s head. And that was on the good days.

So really, it should have come as no surprise to Hux that, on the first day in months that he and Ben were able to get both Anakin and their six-month-old twins down for their nap at a reasonable hour, the Resistance base they were residing in would be attacked out of the blue by some unknown force, demanding the return of Kylo Ren over the main comm line.

“What the hell is happening?!” Hux demanded as he rushed into the command center, cramming his arm into the sleeve of his jacket that he’d barely had time to throw on as he bolted from his room. As soon as the alarm had gone off he’d had Ben and Luke flee with the children to the deepest and most heavily fortifies part of the Resistance hideout, where they would stay for the foreseeable future. It was three levels down from where Hux currently stood, made of the thickest ferrocrete you could imagine, and was stocked with enough supplies to keep a small garrison fed for six standard months. Hux found very little comfort in these facts, however, no matter how many times he’d kept repeating this in his head as he’d sprinted towards the current center of operations. Anakin was probably panicking, and his stress would surely cause the twins to start fussing, and he wasn’t there to help Ben…

“We’re trying to figure that out right now,” Leia snapped, eyes glued on the holoscreen in front of her. A number of tiny ships were zooming around the outside of their base, and any time a soldier attempted to leave the hangar and approach one of the Resistance’s ships to fight off the invaders, they were quickly fired upon. Their troops were effectively pinned down.

Hux looked around the room; Poe Dameron was standing to the side, waiting for orders from the General and also looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. Finn, normally fused to his husband’s side during times like this, was gone; Hux was positive that Finn had taken refuge in the lower level of the base as well. Hux wasn’t surprised in the least, considering that Finn was in his final trimester. He just had to hope that the stress from this debacle wouldn’t trigger an early labor; the premature birth of the newest Resistance child was the last thing any of them, especially Poe, needed to worry about right now. Scattered throughout the room were the other Resistance fighters, some nervously pacing, some trying to get in touch with forces on other planets, and all looking extremely worried.

Major Brance, the man in charge of managing the Resistance communication line, sat in front of General Organa as he spoke into his microphone, his agitation obvious given the way his normally pale cheeks had flushed a dark shade of red. “Once again, state your name and-“

“My name is of no concern to you,” a metallic voice cut in, echoing through the speakers to be heard by everyone standing nearby. “My business is Kylo Ren. You have taken him from us. Give him back, and we will spare what remains of your base.”

“You cannot expect us-“ Brance began, only to be cut off once more.

“I do. You will. Otherwise we will burn this wretched hovel to the ground and take Kylo Ren by force.”

Hux glanced over to Leia, the pair of them sharing a worried look. They’d always known that this day would come; eventually, Snoke would grow tired of whatever little game he was playing with Ben and Hux, and come back to hurt their family in unimaginable ways. He tried not to think about it most nights, but now there was no ignoring the reality of the situation. The Resistance was about to be dragged into an incredibly messy fight, and there was no doubt in the former general’s mind that the Supreme Leader would throw every resource available into the effort of destroying Hux and Ben. Not that Hux was going to just roll over and let that happen, mind you. He had three children and a husband that needed his protection right now; the panicking spouse part of him was quickly shoved aside, in favor of letting the cold, calculating military leader part take over. He needed to act, fast. “We’re trapped here,” he noted, stating the obvious to Leia. “Is there any chance of additional forces coming to our aid?”

Leia shook her head. “We’ve been trying to call for help, but they’re jamming our signal. Goru is trying to come up with a workaround, but he doesn’t know how long that’ll take.”

“We need to keep calm and stall them,” Poe suggested, moving closer to the two of them.

Brance, bless his heart, was trying his best to do just that. “You need to leave this area immediately,” he stated, his firm tone never wavering from the stress of this situation. “We’ve already called for reinforcements-“

“Like hell you did!” a shrill female voice snapped on the other end of the line.

Hux jumped at the exclamation. “What in…?”

“Baru Ma is in charge of communications, and there’s no kriffing way you broke through his jammer!” the woman went on, somehow managing to sound smug and incredibly pissed at the same time. “You’re pinned down, cut off, and at our mercy, you pfassking idiots! Now hand over Kylo Ren before I start getting shooty!”

Despite their desperate situation, Leia couldn’t help but quirk a brow at that last bit. “Getting shooty?”

Hux’s eyes had widened, and his heart was beating a mile a minute. “It couldn’t be…”

“Hurry up and hand him over, you, you…”

“Heartless kidnapper?” Yet another voice suggested from the other line, this one smooth as velvet and deeper than the other two.

“Pilferer of Force users?” came a third, this time another woman.

“Thieving commander of questionable morals?” a soft male voice then put forth.

“Yeah, that!” the first woman finally agreed.

By this point Leia was confused, Poe was attempting to come up with a snappy comeback of his own, and Brance was desperately trying to go through his memories of his early training days in the hopes that one of his mentors had perhaps dropped any sort of hint as to what one was supposed to do in this situation. Hux, meanwhile, had shut his eyes to take a deep, cleansing breath, wondering (not for the first time, and certainly not for the last) what his life might have been like if he’d decided to stay on Starkiller during the first few years of construction, instead of choosing to station himself on the Finalizer alongside a certain dark-haired Force user.

His musings were abruptly cut off, however, by the holoscreen showing a rapidly-growing red dot in one of the ships as a whole new set of warning alarms went off inside the command center. “Last chance,” the female voice said again, “before I drop this-“

Brance barely had time to let out an indignant squawk as Hux yanked the microphone off his head and brought the mouthpiece against his lips. The redhead knew he could be making a catastrophic mistake, and what he was about to say could as easily damn them all as save them. But he had to try; his family was depending on him now. “Mahara Gar Ren, you have two seconds to call off this attack before I find a way to reach through this comm line and snap your neck.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Leia was staring, Poe was gaping at him, and even Brance seemed taken aback. Hux closed his eyes and took a deep breath, praying to whatever higher powers existed that he hadn’t just instigated his own family’s execution. 3, 2, 1-

“Holy kriff, fire crotch, is that you?!”

-n-

If, in his earlier panic, Hux had stopped to peek his head outside on his way to Leia to see what exactly was threatening the Resistance base, he might have noticed that the attacking ships looked suspiciously familiar. And if he had bothered to ponder why these ships looked so familiar to him, he would have realized that they were the personal flight vessels for the First Order’s Knights of Ren, who had on more than one occasion stopped off on the Finalizer to visit their leader, Kylo Ren, and make Hux’s already hectic life even more of a nightmare than it normally was.

Having one unstable warrior that operated outside of the normal chain of command was bad enough; when the other Knights visited, Hux had to deal with seven. And these others loved to play games that drove Hux’s sanity to its breaking point, usually featuring titles such as the “let’s-hide-a-wampa-in-a -crate-in-storage-and-see-what-happens-when-they-open-it” game, or the “let’s-send-a-massive-communication-to-everyone-saying-it’s-Hux’s-birthday” game, or best of all, the “let’s-give-Phasma-all-the-alcohol-she-can-drink-because-Hux-won’t-shoot-her-for-drunken-insubordination” fiasco, just to name a few of their more creative endeavors. They broke things, they lowered morale, they used newbie Stormtroopers for target practice (not with live rounds, thank the Force), and after one visit too many to his ship, Hux had permanently barred them from returning unless explicitly ordered to do so by Snoke, under penalty of immediate death by firing squad or ejection from airlock, whichever Hux felt like at the time. They were deadly, they were efficient, they were a constant thorn in Hux’s side during his time as a First Order general, and now they were here, bearing down on the front doors of the Resistance base and demanding that General Leia Organa hand over their leader, Kylo Ren.

For the time being, Hux was keeping the other Knights at bay while a soldier ran to fetch Ben from the bunker. It was yet another gamble Hux had to take, but he had the distinct feeling that the Knights would eventually want confirmation that their former leader was still alive and not being strung up by his toes over a sarlacc pit, as one of them had apparently feared. “I’m not putting Ben on the line, you lunatics, until you explain what you’re doing here,” he snapped, utilizing his firmest and most no-nonsense general voice (which was rather good, considering he hadn’t used it properly in years).

“We’re freeing him from this hostage situation and taking him home!” Mahara shot back. “Son of a bantha-faced whore, have you been listening to what I’ve been saying for the last…however long?!”

“For the final time,” Hux ground out in a clipped tone, “we are not hostages-“

“Wait,” Mahara cut in, “why am I talking to you? You’re a hostage too! They could be making you say anything, or else they’ll cut off your fingers! *gasp* What if they already did that?! You kriffing bastards, _he needs those to talk down to people_!”

“What the hell is going on?” Brance whispered to Poe.

“I’m halfway sure it’s the weirdest dream I’ve ever had after drinking Corellian rum.”

Mahara wasn’t done yet. “Did they tell you to read off a script they gave you, or they’d take your tongue next?! Son a kriffing Hutt, they did!”

“Mahara-“ Hux tried to interject.

“Scorra, get ready to head in!” Mahara shouted, voice fainter as though she was leaning away from the mic now. “We’ve got a double hostage situation!”

“Wouldn’t a double hostage situation still just be a hostage situation? I’m fairly certain that’s a collective plural,” Brance remarked thoughtfully.

“Not now,” General Organa ground out.

Hux had to resist the urge to groan and rub his palms against his eyes. That wouldn’t be helpful now; besides, someone in the room had to act like this clusterfuck of a situation could still be salvaged, and it should probably be him. So instead of letting his exasperation show, he took a breath and said, “Put Artet on the line.”

Mahara didn’t seem to be listening. “Relax Hux, we’ll get you out in one piece! Well, mostly one piece. Probably. It’s kind of hard to keep people in one piece when working with lasers, you know? Hmm…Kylo would probably be all right with it as long as we don’t accidentally shoot off your-“

“ **Now, Mahara** ,” Hux snapped, doing his best to avoid looking towards Poe and Leia, although he had a feeling that their cheeks were probably as red as his ears. By the Force, did _everyone_ in the galaxy know about his and Ben’s sex life?

There was a bit of grumbling on the other end of the line, followed by static. Poe grabbed Hux’s shoulder and yanked the former general around to meet his eyes. “What is going on?!” he hissed, panic clear in his eyes. “If this is some kind of trick-“

“General Hux,” an amused baritone suddenly broke in, interrupting whatever curses Poe had surely intended to throw his way. “Mahara has informed me that you and Kylo Ren are both being held captive by the Resistance, who are, and I quote, ‘threatening to rip out Hux’s tongue if he doesn’t tell us dirty Republic lies.’ Am I right in assuming some facts have been embellished?”

A door opened and closed behind Hux, but the redhead was hardly aware. Artet had always been the most reasonable of the Knights, acting as a babysitter for the group when Hux appeared to hit his breaking point. Surely he could be reasoned with. “Artet, you and the other Knights need to leave immediately,” he stated, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but Kylo Ren is not being held hostage here.”

“Hux?”

The redhead felt his heart skip a beat. Slowly, he turned to see Ben standing by his mother, now gaping at his husband with eyes as wide as saucers. It shouldn’t surprise him that Ben recognized the voice on the other end of the line; he’d been a Knight of Ren longer than anything else in his life, spending more time with the other Knights than he’d spent with his parents, with Luke, even with Hux. The dark-haired Force user slowly walked forward, eyes locked with Hux’s. “Hux, is that…”

Wordlessly, Hux handed the microphone to Ben, doing his best to give his husband a supportive look. Ben opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed, opened it again, and brought the comm link to his lips. “Artet, it’s me.”

The link sprang to life as a half-dozen voices jumped in all at once. It was horrifically jumbled and confusing, mostly inquiries as to if Kylo Ren was ok, why was Hux there, and were they hurt, with a few reassurances thrown in here and there. No threats, no warnings, no demands that Kylo Ren surrender himself to their power at once, or anything along those lines. The Knights were worried, Hux suddenly realized. They weren’t here to outright murder Ben, they were legitimately concerned that something awful had happened to their leader. For the first time, it sunk in that he and Ben weren’t going to be immediately killed. The Knights of Ren honestly thought that their leader needed to be rescued from the clutches of his mother.

It would have been funny if Hux wasn’t so terrified of what would happen to him and Ben after this supposed “rescue.”

“Artet, can you and the others land near the far northern end of the base?” Ben asked, voice a little stronger now. “We need to discuss some things.”

“…”

“Artet?”

“20, then 17, then 13…”

“Then 10, then 7,” Ben replied, tension leaving his shoulders at the words.

“We’ll land now. All of us.” Ben didn’t even have a chance to reply before the line went dead. Moments later, the holoscreen showed the once-hostile ships flying to the edge of the base and touching down.

Ben all but threw the headset back to Brance before sprinting out of the room, Hux fast on his heels. “Ben-“

“I need to go talk to them.”

“Absolutely not,” Leia protested, having rushed after the two of them. “They’re here to take you back to Snoke, Ben; they said so!”

“She’s right,” Hux agreed. “You need to wait until we can put them under armed surveillance before we even think of talking-“

“Hux, mom, I know these people,” Ben interjected. “They won’t hurt me.”

“Ben, they’re Snoke’s personal attack dogs!” Hux all but screamed. “They’re trained to do exactly what Snoke tells them to, and not to deviate from that for any reason! They’ll lie, they’ll murder, and they’ll aggressively kidnap if that’s what they’ve been commanded to do.”

“It was the same for me,” Ben countered, “and look where we are.”

Neither Hux nor Leia had a response prepared for that, allowing Ben a chance to break away and continue on his course towards the hangar, where he could exit out of the base proper. “Trust me. They won’t hurt us.”

Hux couldn’t be sure of his husband’s claim, but he’d be damned if Ben went out there alone. He raced after the Force user, while Leia hung back and began calling for reinforcements in case things went wrong.

-n-

By the time Hux had caught up to Ben, he could see several figures dressed in all black heading straight towards the base. He glanced to Ben, who appeared frighteningly calm, given the situation. Partially to reassure the Force user, but mostly to reassure himself, Hux took hold of Ben’s hand and wove their fingers together. Ben gently squeezed back, though he kept his eyes looking straight ahead.

One very slight figure was walking ahead of the main group, and once they got about 40 feet away, they stopped and removed their helmet, flinging it to the side. Hux could now see a pair of dark brown eyes beneath wavy brown hair, which was in dire need of a hairbrush. It could only be Mahara. “Kyyyyyyyyyloooooooo!” she practically screeched as she broke into a sprint, making a beeline towards her former commander.

Ben took a few steps forward, pulling away from Hux as he moved to welcome the young woman. She was smiling widely; surely that was a good sign?

But then they got within ten feet of each other, and Mahara’s smile suddenly morphed into a frown. She took one final step towards Ben, pulled her leg back as far as she could bend it (which was pretty far, Hux had to give her credit) and kicked Ben so hard in the shin that Hux would swear he could hear bones shattering. Ben, for his part, swore and doubled over immediately, clutching his shin in agony. “Wha-“

“You son a kriffing bantha-monger and half-witted nerf-herder!” Mahara shrieked, grabbing Ben by the front of his shirt and violently shaking him back and forth. “We’ve been worried about you for months after you just vanished, and you’ve been totally fine?! You don’t even look malnourished, for kriff’s sake!”

“Maha-“

“I swear to all your gods and mine, if you ever pull something like this again I will drag you to the nearest sizable body of water I can find and hold your head under until the bubbles stop coming up!”

Hux was about to interject, fearing that his husband was about to suffer a broken neck along with his damaged shin, but another figure in black appeared just then and pulled Mahara away with a firm tug at her shoulder. “Mahara, breathe,” the newcomer demanded in a familiar baritone.

Mahara huffed and stepped away, allowing Ben’s savior to remove his mask. Just as Hux had suspected, brown hair and hazel eyes appeared a moment later, and he found himself looking into the smiling face of Artet. Soon the other Knights had gathered around, and those that hadn’t already removed their helmets quickly took them off now.

After that, Ben was drowned under a sea of hugs, shoulder pats, and even a few noogies. Questions and answers flew so rapidly that Hux could barely keep up, and he doubted that the answers given were heard all that well anyway. The Knights seemed far more concerned with reassuring themselves that Ben was alive and well than they did with hearing any explanations he might have about why he and Hux were here with the Resistance.

Unfortunately for them, the joyous reunion was interrupted a moment later by the appearance of Leia, Rey, and at least two dozen Resistance fighters, all sporting blasters that were immediately trained on the Knights. The Knights of Ren, in turn, began to reach for their own weapons, only for Ben to quickly move between the two groups, raising his arms in a defensive position. “Don’t!”

“Ben, we don’t know why these people are here,” Leia stated calmly, as though talking to a child. “You could be in danger. This whole place could be in danger.”

Mahara groaned and visibly slumped over, as though Leia’s very presence was exhausting her. “We told you, we just came here for Kylo Ren!”

“That’s not my name anymore,” Ben stated, turning to look at the Knights. “I gave that up when Hux and I left the First Order.”

“Really?” a male with tan skin, black hair, and black eyes asked from the rear of the group. Baru Ma, Hux mentally noted.

Ben nodded. “Kylo Ren hasn’t been my name for a very long time.”

“Exactly. Do you understand now?” Rey asked, trying to puff her tiny body up to look more intimidating before this powerful group of warriors. It might have seemed cute, if Hux wasn’t painfully aware that Rey could probably kill most of the people here using that lightsaber attached to her hip without even breaking a sweat. “Ben and Hux willingly left, so there’s no point in trying to take them back to Snoke, or get-“

“Wait, what?” Artet asked, giving the young Force user a truly confused look. “Snoke?”

“Yes, Snoke,” Rey went on. “We know he’s the one controlling you-“

“Baru, were we meant to take Kylo back to Snoke?” a female Knight asked. Her skin and eyes were the same color as Baru Ma’s; Hux belatedly recognized her as the former’s twin.

“I don’t believe so, Hetti.”

“I’m fairly certain I’d feel conflicted about that.”

“I definitely would.”

“Seems rather poor form for us.”

“Not to mention very back-stabby.”

“Hey, wait a sec, is that why you guys were freaking out?” Mahara demanded, expression somewhere between confusion and anger. “You thought we were taking…not-Kylo back to Snoke?”

Now it was Leia’s turn to look confused. “Obviously. That’s what you kept screaming.”

“Negative,” a mechanical voice stated from behind a mask. Talder, the only Knight who never took off his mask. “Our mission was only to rescue Kylo Ren. We have no intention of taking him to Snoke.”

At this point, everyone looked completely and utterly bewildered. Hux, still on high alert, was the first to find his voice and ask, “Then why are you after Ben?”

“Because he’s a Knight of Ren!” Mahara declared. “And we look out for each other, no matter what!”


	2. Settling In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Knights are here and want to stay. What do Leia and Anakin think?

-n-

Several hours later, Leia was sitting in her private quarters with an audio recording in front of her. She was on her third cup of caff this evening, and considering what kind of day she’d had, another cup in the near future was extremely likely. At least it was better than being on her third glass of rum, although a nightcap might not be a bad idea. Shaking her head, the general turned her attention back to the matter at hand: what to do with the Knights of Ren.

After the Knights had reiterated multiple times that they had no desire to attack Ben or take him away, they’d been led into the base and put under surveillance. Normal protocol would insist that the Knights be separated, but these six had insisted on staying together, going as far as to physically hang on to one another when the Resistance members tried to separate them. A fight had nearly broken out, stopped only when Ben and Rey physically restrained everyone present with their Force abilities. It was finally decided that the Knights would all be put in the same interrogation chamber, given a small snack, and then questioned for several hours. Eventually the final version of their story was given to General Organa, and the Knights themselves were placed in a cell while the Resistance leaders debated their fate. Leia sighed and began to play the recording again, listening to the sound of the Knights’ interrogation for what had to be the dozenth time while she sipped her caff.

“All right,” Admiral Statura, one of her chief interrogators began, “please state your names for the record.”

“Mahara Gar Ren,” a familiar voice piped up.

“Artet Ren.”

“Baru Ma Ren.”

“Hetti Ma Ren.”

“Talder Ren.”

“Scorra Ren.”

“All right.” Leia could hear faint some shuffling; Statura must have been adjusting himself in his seat. “Now, for the official record, please explain your relationship with Ben Hux, nee Ben Solo, formerly known by you as Kylo Ren.”

“He was something of a leader to us,” Artet explained, his voice smooth and showing no signs of stress from the interrogation. Leia was impressed; this particular recording had been made over two hours into the interrogation, so one would normally expect fatigue or tension to start showing at this point. “Technically Snoke was the one to give us our orders, but in terms of actual day to day operations, we followed Kylo…sorry, Ben.”

“He looked out for us,” a gentle voice added. Leia recognized it as the person who’d introduced themselves as Scorra, a sweet-looking young man with blond hair and a blue-green eye color that suggested he wasn’t entirely human in species. “You could trust him to protect you.”

“When he wasn’t trying to hurl you through a wall,” Mahara cut in with a snicker. A pause, and then, “Er, not that he tried to do that a lot or anything!”

“Those of us who followed his orders tended to come back from missions alive,” the mechanical bass of Talder explained. “Those who ignored him did not.”

“We figured out fairly quickly it was the Force guiding him,” an almost musical female voice clarified; Hetti, the other woman in the group.

“Quite easy, given how often he spoke of it,” her brother added.

“Not everyone believed him,” she added thoughtfully.

“And not everyone survived,” Baru concluded.

“Moving on,” Statura cut in, somewhat flustered by the group. “Now, you said Ben was the leader of the Knights of Ren; but what exactly was he expected to lead your group to do?”

“Whatever Snoke wanted,” Artet answered, and Leia could practically hear his shrug through the recording. “Sometimes we had to kill people. Sometimes we had to suppress an uprising. Sometimes we even had to incite an uprising. We went where we were told to go, and did what we were told to do. I think my father would have called us ‘jacks of all trades’ or something like that.”

“But what could you do that was such an improvement over the Stormtroopers?”

Mahara laughed. “You’re kriffing kidding me, right? Stormtroopers are for when you need a hammer to pound in a nail. More delicate stuff like assassinations or intimidations has to be handled by an outside party. We’re that party.”

“I don’t know if I’d use that term,” Baru cut in.

“What other term should they use?” Hetti asked.

“Perhaps independent contractors?”

“Those are people who build houses.”

“Then do you have a suggestion?”

“Anything other than party. It makes it sound too much like our work was fun.”

“Anyway,” Artet interjected before the twins could babble any longer, “Ben would receive the orders directly from Snoke, pass them on to us, and help us create the best plan to carry out our assignment. Sometimes it was easy, because we had a lot of information. Other times…not so much.”

“We went in blind a lot,” Mahara added, her typically peppy voice somewhat subdued. “There were a bunch of missions where I ended up in a medical center, torn to pieces, and considered myself lucky. Honestly, most of us should probably be dead right now.”

“Ben kept that from happening,” Talder concluded.

“I see…” Statura stated, pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts before the interview continued. “And what is your relationship to the former First Order General-“

“Don’t bother with the name, we all know you’re talking about Hux,” Mahara stated with a laugh, tone suddenly perking up. “Fire crotch was never a part of the Knights. Hell, we didn’t even know he existed until about five years ago, when Ren got stationed on the Finalizer.”

“He was rather uptight,” Scorra mumbled. “I didn’t really like him.”

“He was uptight because you and Mahara thought it was a good idea to call him fire crotch and ask if his carpet matched the drapes,” Artet snipped, and Leia could hear the accused woman snickering at the memory. “Although Mahara is mostly correct. We rarely if ever had any direct interactions with Hux; like Snoke, Ben served as our intermediary.”

“Though we did have to give him the shovel talk,” Mahara noted thoughtfully. “You know, make sure he was good enough for our boss.”

“Not that they were really like that, at the time,” Baru clarified.

“Theirs was a rather hateful and passionate affair,” Hetti added. “Quite messy.”

“Somewhat bloody.”

“Often noisy.”

“They were clearly smitten with one another.”

Mahara sighed dreamily. “You just knew they were meant to be when Hux threatened to jettison us from the Finalizer if we didn’t stop butting into their ‘private affairs’ or whatever he called them back then.”

“Thank you, that’s more than enough information,” Statura snapped, and Leia could practically see the scandalized look on the face of one of her more prim and proper officers. “All right. Now, for the record, can you please state why you’ve come here today?”

“Mahara?” Artet prodded.

The woman cleared her throat. “A few years ago, we got a message from Ren-“

“Ben,” Statura corrected.

“Whatever. Anyway, the comm said that he was going to be gone for a while. We figured, ok, no big deal, Snoke’s had his panties in a knot ever since Starkiller exploded, so Ben’s probably being dragged off for super secret advanced Dark Side training.”

“It wasn’t the first time,” Scorra added.

“We prepared to be without our leader for a time and carried on with our day,” Talder explained.

Mahara cut back in then. “But then a day later, BAM! Hux and Ben are gone, and it’s become headline news. It was the craziest thing. It was all anyone could talk about, and everyone was saying that they thought the Supreme Leader must have killed them for the Starkiller fiasco.”

“But a few months later, Snoke placed a bounty on both of their heads,” Artet cut in. “So we knew Ben had to be alive. And then a few more months passed, and we found out that not only had they disappeared, but there were pictures of Hux with Resistance members. That’s when we figured out where Ben had gone.”

“And Ben didn’t tell you any of this? He never once communicated with you after that first message?”

“Why would he?” Scorra asked. “Anything he told us might get back to Snoke.”

“The less we knew, the better,” Talder added. “Ben was protecting us, as always.”

“Then why attack our base now? Especially since you knew they’d joined forces with us?”

“Uh-uh, that’s an assumption,” Mahara snipped. “We only heard reports about Hux fighting with the Resistance; Ben never showed up in any report or picture taken in the field. To us, it looked a lot like you were forcing Hux to do your bidding while Ben was locked up somewhere. Plus, we hadn’t seen any pictures of Hux for a couple of months, so we thought something might have happened to General Ginger too.”

“How does that make more sense than thinking Kylo was _willingly_ staying at the base and assisting there?”

“Well, we thought about that…” Mahara began, voice sounding slightly uneasy.

“It didn’t seem likely,” Artet continued, “because Ben was always very vocal about his distaste for his upbringing. He didn’t like the Resistance, or the Light side, or Jedis, or anything like that. Even after he stopped talking about it, you just knew. Mostly because consoles tended to get slashed up when those things were mentioned.”

“The logical conclusion was that his hand had been forced in some way to make him defect,” Talder stated.

“But it appears our friend has gotten over his past issues,” Baru stated.

“Good for him,” Hetti added, and she practically sounded happy.

Statura sighed. “All right. And now that you’ve seen Ben and Hux, what are your intentions?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mahara asked. “We’re the Knights of Ren. Even if Kylo’s calling himself Ben now, he’s still a Knight of Ren. We stick together and look out for each other. The boss is here, so that’s where we need to be. Hope you’ve got space for six!”

Leia shut off the message at that point and sighed, letting her face fall into her hands. Her son had spent half of his life with these people, who were all admitted assassins or worse. They’d helped keep her son in the Dark Side, aided him in fighting for Snoke and destroying countless lives, and by all accounts deserved to be thrown into a cell and locked away for the remainders of their natural lifespans. And yet…

Leia reminded herself that Ben had been swayed so easily to the Dark side at a young age. These other Knights of Ren had mostly appeared to be about Ben’s age, or even a bit younger; who knew what sort of pull Snoke had over them, all those years ago when he drafted them? And the way they talked about their work lead Leia to believe that there was no malice or sadism in their hearts. The indifference in Artet’s tone could come off as cruel, but Leia had seen enough war in her lifetime to understand a mentality of doing what you needed to in order to survive, and then emotionally distancing yourself from the acts. Besides, given the others’ back and forth concerning the tasks Snoke doled out to them, their actions as Knights of Ren came off as more of a heavy burden foisted upon them than anything else.

But aside from all that, Leia had a more selfish (and possibly foolish reason) for wanting to spare these Knights the fate of a locked cell. When they spoke of Ben, it was with fondness that could only have been cultivated over the course of many years. He was their protector. He was their trusted leader. He was someone that they cared about enough to plot a rescue for, over the course of months, knowing that doing so would permanently destroy their ties to the First Order, and possibly kill them when they encountered the Resistance. There was hope and love in every one of their hearts; they could be saved. They could be brought to the Light Side, just as Ben had been.

And if bringing them to the Light happened to further weaken Snoke, well, that was just icing on the cake.

Setting aside the interrogation recording for now, Leia turned her attention to a holoscreen monitor in the corner of her desk. As a general, she had access to all of the cameras in her base, including the one that looked into the cell where the Knights were being held. She hesitated for a moment, and then switched her screen from a feed in the main hall to the cell.

All six Knights were crammed into bed together, sharing two mattresses that had been pushed together in the center of the room. Leia had wanted to separate them, putting the Knights in groups of two so that they’d had adequate space (and a bit of privacy, for that matter) but like their interrogation, the men and women had refused to separate. Leia hadn’t sense anything malicious behind their demands, which was the only reason she’d allowed it.

As she watched, the one closest to the door sat up. It took Leia a moment to identify them, and she finally realized it was Scorra. The man sat up and looked around for a minute, before his eyes settled on one of the other Knights. Carefully, Scorra stood up and walked around the edge of the beds, finally stopping in front of Mahara. He kneeled down and shook the woman by her shoulder, until she awoke. There was a pause, Scorra probably saying something that the cameras couldn’t record, and then Mahara was up and moving to Scorra’s spot. Scorra, in turn, flopped down between Talder and Artet, apparently falling back asleep soon after. Mahara lay down where Scorra had been, body turned to face the door.

Leia’s brow rose, and a thread of concern wound its way through her mind as Artet’s arm flopped heavily onto Scorra while Baru scooted back to press his back again Mahara’s. That wasn’t normal behavior. Maybe there was a reason for the Knights sticking together other than just raw loyalty.

-meanwhile, in another private room-

“How’s your shin?”

Ben sighed as he crawled into bed and pulled the covers up over himself and his husband. “It’ll heal. I realized what Mahara was going to do a moment before she actually hit me, and I’ve been trying to channel some Force energy into the wound to help heal it, but…”

“But you’re still going to have a nasty bruise for a while, right?” Hux asked, snuggling up to the injured Force user and giving him a sympathetic kiss on the lips.

“Probably,” Ben admitted. “It could’ve been worse. I was halfway expecting her to try and actually choke me out.”

“Ben?”

“Hm?”

“You honestly think they don’t mean to harm us?”

Ben resisted the urge to sigh or roll his eyes, knowing that neither of those things would be helpful right now. “I’m telling you, they’re not going to hurt us, love,” he whispered, squeezing his arms a little tighter around Hux. “Trust me.”

“I do. It’s them I don’t trust,” Hux clarified, running his fingers through Ben’s hair.

“Hux-“

“No, listen to me,” Hux went on. “There was a point where I would have been willing to take that risk, Ben, but that was before you and I had three children in the picture. If we’re wrong about this…if letting them into the base turns out to be a trap…”

Ben pulled back and looked up into Hux’s face for a long moment, feeling his husband’s emotions through the Force. Worry and stress were there, as always, but now there was a thick undercurrent of fear as well. Ben shut his eyes and thought for a moment, before settling on something that he hoped would calm Hux. “Mahara doesn’t have any fingerprints, you know.”

Hux blinked. “Excuse me?”

“She doesn’t have any fingerprints,” Ben repeated. “None of them do.”

“…Beloved, I’m sure you’re trying to be comforting right now, but I need you to clarify how exactly this is supposed to reassure me.”

“I met her when she was ten, and I was fourteen,” Ben began, sitting up in bed now as Hux moved to do the same. “She was a mess for the first few months, always shouting or making some stupid comment meant to piss someone off. I wasn’t much better back then; most of the time I’d smack her or throw something at her with the Force to try and make her shut up.” He stopped and took a deep breath, needing a minute to get past the actions he’d committed so long ago, when Snoke was still pulling him towards the Dark. “But one day, after we’d finished our training, I asked her why she wouldn’t stop. She said she hated being with the Knights. Said that Snoke had told her that her life would be completely different with us, but she still felt like the old version of herself: weak, alone, haunted by the past. And I guess we kind of connected over that.”

Hux nodded and pulled Ben in for a half-hug, kissing the Force user’s temple as he did so. Ben’s identity had always been a source of intense conflict for his husband; even now, after all their time in Luke and Leia’s presence, Hux had had to accept that the tug of war between Light and Dark would always be a feature of Ben’s life.

“Anyway,” Ben continued, “a few weeks later, I made my very first lightsaber, and had an idea. I went to her one afternoon and told her about fingerprints, and how each person has a completely unique set that you get at birth. And we talked a little bit about that, and then I turned on my lightsaber, and, well…we burned them off. Her first, and then me, so I could operate it until we were both done.”

Hux blinked, and then slowly reached down to take Ben’s hand into his own. He carefully brought the hand to his face, turning on the lights and staring at the digits in quiet surprise. “I can’t believe I never noticed,” he murmured.

Ben smiled and took his hand back. “To be fair, usually you’re interested in completely different parts of my anatomy when we’re this close.”

Hux snorted at that, leaning in to steal a quick kiss. “You didn’t get in trouble?”

Ben laughed. “With who? Snoke didn’t care what we did in our free time, as long as we were still able to do our jobs for him. We waited a few hours until we were sure that bacta couldn’t heal our prints, and then we patched ourselves up. The others heard about it later, and within about a year, all six of them had lost their fingerprints too. It seems stupid, looking back on it, but we needed something like that. We needed to feel like we’d burned off our old identities to become part of the Knights of Ren.”

Hux nodded and lay back down as the meaning of the story sank in. To deliberately seek out that kind of bond at such a young age was nothing to scoff at. These were people who’d willingly disfigured themselves to cut off their old lives and prove their loyalty to a new group. Who knew how many other small stories like that Ben had accumulated over the years; Hux knew better than to think that the Knights would have tracked Ben down over what had to be the mercenary equivalent of friendship bracelets. Speaking of tracking him down… “Ben?”

“Hm?” Ben hummed, stretching himself across Hux’s chest.

“What was that thing you and Artet said over the comm?”

“Which thing?”

“The numbers.”

“Oh.” Ben fidgeted a little at the inquiry. “It’s an old code we used to use sometimes. I was just letting him know he was safe here.”

Hux wanted to push the issue more, asking what the code actually meant and why _Ben_ felt the need to reassure _Artet_ , but was stopped because their door whooshed open at that moment. A tiny figure stood in the doorway; Anakin, holding his arms tightly around a small Wookie plush named Kiki. “Mama? Daddy?”

“Anakin, what are you doing up?” Ben asked as he crossed the room to scoop up their son and carry him to their bed.

The little boy sniffled as he was settled down between Hux and Ben. “I was scared that the bad people were going to come back.”

Ben hushed the little boy while Hux rubbed soft circles into Anakin’s back. “Anakin, those weren’t bad people. They were some of my old friends, and they were acting mean because they thought I was hurt.”

Anakin looked confused by this. “Why did they think that?”

“Because I had to leave them a long time ago,” Ben gently explained, “to help keep you and daddy safe. And they didn’t know if I was ok or not, and they got really scared and wanted to try and find me.”

Anakin nodded. “Sometimes when daddy goes away, I get scared and want to find him too.”

Hux felt something tighten in his chest and pulled his son in for a hug. “But I’ll always come back to you, sweetie. Mama’s friends were scared because he didn’t come back.”

Anakin nodded again. “Are they nice friends, mama?”

“Very nice,” Ben replied with a smile.

“Can I meet them?”

Both parents froze for a minute, before Ben answered, “Well, grandma has to say it’s ok first.”

“Why?”

Hux, mercifully, interjected for Ben this time. “When mama’s friends came here, they scared a lot of people. Grandma has to make sure that they don’t scare anyone else for a while.”

“Ok.” Anakin yawned, eyes slowly drooping shut. “Where are they?”

Ben chuckled at this. “Probably sleeping in a big pile in a room somewhere.”

Hux raised a brow, and Anakin tilted his head up. “Why? Didn’t grandma give them all beds?”

“Yes, but…Anakin, you know how when you get scared, you sometimes come in here to sleep with Daddy and me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, sometimes my friends get scared like that too. When that happens, they like to sleep in the same room to feel better.”

“Oh. Ok.” Anakin’s eyes had completely shut by this point, and a moment later, soft snuffling noises let Ben and Hux know that their son had fallen asleep. Ben smiled down at their child, gently running his fingers through Anakin’s strawberry blond locks. Hux, meanwhile, was watching his husband with a fair amount of concern. That comment on sleeping together hadn’t been meant to comfort their son initially; it was a slip of the tongue by Ben in relation to something the Knights apparently did with somewhat regular frequency when they were scared. Just who were these Knights, and what had happened to make them like this?

-n-

The next day, Ben and Leia took a chance and allowed the Knights of Ren to meet the Hux family. Hux was paranoid, Leia was anxious, and Luke insisted that he be stationed just outside their living quarters in case things went wrong. Ben was the only one who didn’t appear scared. “They’re just looking out for me, Hux,” he’d promised his husband at breakfast that morning. “And we need as many protectors for our children as we can get.”

Anakin was slightly nervous, sitting in Hux’s lap and hiding behind Kiki the Wookie. Both parents had tried to be reassuring earlier, but their son was already Force-sensitive enough to pick up on their anxiety even if he didn’t realize he was doing so. Hux held him close and ran soothing fingers through his son’s hair, waiting for his husband to return with the Knights in tow.

Eventually the door to their room whooshed open, and Ben entered with his former comrades following close behind. “This is where Hux and I have been living,” he explained. His eyes searched the room until he found his husband and son sitting at the kitchen table. “They’re in here.”

Gradually, the Knights filtered their way into the Hux family’s living space, looking around with far more interest than Hux thought was strictly necessary for inspecting a person’s home. Most had the decency to make their way over to the redhead after a few minutes’ worth of inspection, but Mahara insisted on looking over everything, even going so far as to investigate the contents of their kitchen cabinets. “Well, I guess it’s true,” she finally said, frowning and shaking her head as though she was thoroughly disappointed in her commander. “You’ve gone domestic.”

“Lovely house,” Baru stated.

“Quite,” his twin agreed. “Although a bit…austere.”

“We should have brought a housewarming gift.”

“Perhaps some flowers?”

“Or a doormat.”

“What do people get for gifts these days?”

“Ahem,” Hux interrupted.

Kylo herded the Knights towards the table, albeit trying not to let them get too close to Anakin in the process. “Everyone, this is our oldest son, Anakin.”

The small redhead hid behind his Wookie, clearly a bit nervous at meeting so many new people at once. Artet stepped forward and kneeled down in front of the boy, smiling softly. “Hello Anakin.”

“Hi,” the boy mumbled from behind his plush.

“My name is Artet. These are my friends, and we’re all very excited to meet you.”

Anakin slowly peeked out from his hiding place. “Mama says you’re his friend.”

“I am.”

“Are they mama’s friends too?” Anakin asked, pointing to the other Knights.

“Yes, they are. Do you want to meet the others?”

“Ok.”

“I’m Mahara,” the brunette woman suddenly said, stepping forward to kneel in front of Anakin.

“H-hi.”

“I like your Wookie, Anakin.”

Anakin peeked his head out a little more. “Really?”

“Uh-huh. What’s its name?”

Gradually, as Anakin became more and more comfortable, the other Knights came forward and made their introductions. Anakin seemed to actually like the Knights once his initial fear had worn off, possibly picking up on the positive vibes coming from the Knights, which in turn made Hux relax. By the time Talder had introduced himself, Anakin was off his father’s lap and holding Scorra’s hand, pulling the man towards the twins’ room as he dragged Kiki along behind him. “Jaina and Han sleep in here,” he explained in a hushed voice. “They’re napping right now, so we have to be really quiet.”

“Ok,” Scorra whispered with a nod. Hux was rather impressed; he’d seen recordings of Scorra impale a man on his blade before, coated in the enemy’s blood and charging headlong into the fray after that without a second thought. It was almost startling to see him be so gentle with a child.

Most of the Knights gathered around the twins’ cribs to coo over the babies, although Talder hung back near the doorway. Not that he would have needed to crowd in close to see; Talder stood a solid inch taller than even Ben, the next tallest person in the room by a good margin. Hux moved to stand by him, trusting Ben to handle the Knights closer to the crib. He glanced up at the Knight, noting with some concern that Talder was still wearing his mask. “You can take that off, you know.”

Talder’s head moved ever so slightly towards Hux; had it not been for the years he spent learning Ben’s body language behind the mask, Hux might have missed it. “I did not want to frighten your children,” he explained.

Hux took a minute to process. “So, the mask is…?”

“Not an aesthetic choice,” Talder bluntly specified before turning his head away.

Hux nodded and glanced across the room. Scorra had actually picked up Anakin now and was holding him above Jaina’s crib to look down at his baby sister. “Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

Hux glanced at Talder out of the corner of his eye. “Yesterday, on the comm…”

“Hm?”

“20, then 17, then 13, then 10, then 7. What does that mean?”

Talder’s shoulder twitched; Hux assumed it was involuntary, and didn’t mention it. “Exactly what it sounds like. We were 20. Then we became 17. Then 13, then 10, and now we are 7.”

“But why say it over the comm?”

“If Ky…if Ben had been in danger, the final number would have been changed to 6,” Talder explained. “If we were the ones threatened by a trap, the number would be 1. Depending on the context, the number is changed to say how many Knights are needed, or how many may survive a given scenario.”

Hux nodded and looked across the room again. Ben had just pulled Han out of his crib and was handing him to Artet, who looked rather terrified to be holding such a tiny creature. Jaina was already nestled in Baru’s arms, and Anakin had been passed to Mahara at some point. “What happened to the other Knights?”

“Snoke,” Talder stated, before pushing off the wall to walk towards the other Knights. Hux let him go.


	3. Finding a Niche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Knights can't just be left to loiter; they have to pull their own weight. Sometimes, that works out ok. Other times...not so much.

Over the course of the next several weeks, the Knights begin to settle into life within the Resistance. There was an understandable amount of hesitation and caution on the Resistance’s end; the Knights were heavily monitored at all times, barred from access to any communication lines without at least three people supervising, and absolutely could not carry their weapons around any high-ranking Resistance officials. Even with these precautions in place, there was still a little grumbling, but a few words from Ben settled this, and the Knights seemed ready to take these new demands in stride.

There were of course a few hiccups. Three days after the Knights had first landed, one of their ships took off without warning, sending the Resistance into a panic as they moved to put the entire base on lockdown. The immediate fear was of course that the Knights had sent some of their own to report back to Snoke. “I knew we should have kept them in a cell,” Poe growled to Leia.

General Organa quietly shook her head. “We can’t jump to any conclusions yet. Luke didn’t sense any ill will in their actions, and neither do I. We need to give them a chance to explain themselves.”

And so it came to pass that a bit later, Leia and Poe tracked down the rest of the Knights, who were picnicking in the forest near the edge of the base with Ben and Hux. The whole group seemed rather surprised by the appearance of the Resistance leader and one of her more faithful underlings. “Mom?” Ben asked.

Leia ignored her son and turned to the Knights of Ren. “One of your ships just took off without proper clearance,” she stated. “Would you care to explain?”

Mahara nodded and held up a finger, silently asking Leia to wait while she finished the bite in her mouth. “Yeah, we sent Baru and Hetti out for presents.”

“Presents,” Poe deadpanned, clearly not believing the Knight.

“For Ben’s family,” Scorra quietly added, flinching slightly when Poe’s glare was turned on him.

“Why exactly have they been sent for presents?” Leia asked, going along with the story for now.

“Well, we were talking about the housewarming gifts last night, and we realized that we also owed these idiots some wedding gifts, plus a few baby shower presents, and like four years of birthday gifts between him and Hux and Anakin,” Mahara explained with a shrug.

“We determined the cantina could not provide adequate presents,” Talder added in a serious tone.

“So I asked them to go off-planet and get a few things,” Artet concluded. “They should be back soon.”

-meanwhile, on a not-so-distant planet-

“What exactly does one get a four-year-old for their birthday?” Baru asked, perusing the back wall of an arms dealer’s shop that he and the other Knights liked to frequent.

Hetti shrugged, turning over a blaster core in her hands. Neither of them had ever had any occasion to shop for children’s gifts before, and their upbringing hadn’t exactly been the sort where presents were a frequent (or even infrequent) occurrence. “A guard bantha is probably too large for him right now.”

“Not to mention we need to start small and work our way up to more pricey gifts.”

“Perhaps a knife set?”

“Sister, he is a child.” 

“Child-size knives, then.”

“Brilliant.”

-back at the base-

Ben gaped at the Knights, and it was Leia who finally had to speak to them. “Artet, Mahara, your intentions were good, but we cannot be sure if your group can be trusted yet. We barred you from using the communication lines; why would you think an unauthorized departure from the planet would be allowed?”

The Knights all looked to one another, before Artet spoke again. “That’s how it’s always been done,” he explained. “We come and go as needed.”

“You honestly expect us to believe that?” Poe demanded. “That you thought it was ok to fly off to who knows where after we took away your communication privileges?”

“Poe-“ Ben began, preparing to defend his friends.

“Snoke would do that sometimes,” Mahara interjected, puffing up a bit in anger. “Just like taking away food or sleep. He said that isolating us from resources would produce stronger soldiers.”

“Or weed out the weaker ones,” Scorra added.

“Was this not a test to prove we could endure your rules?” Talder asked.

Hux was feeling rather lost by this point. Leia motioned for Ben to approach her, and the two walked a short distance into the woods. Poe stayed behind, glaring down at the Knights, who themselves simply went back to their discussion on the merits of zero-gravity paintball wars that had been going on before the general approached.

Moments later mother and son returned, Ben moving to sit down by his husband and Leia giving the Knights a look that was stern and yet somehow rather sad. “In the future, if you wish to leave my base, you must do it with at least half a dozen of my men in tow, and you will clear the trip with my advisors beforehand. Am I understood?”

“They understand,” Ben quickly stated, and the Knights nodded their heads towards Leia. The general gave them one final look, and then walked off with Poe following behind. Once they were out of earshot, Ben began speaking to the Knights again. “Guys, you can’t do that again.”

“But we never-“

“I know how we used to do things,” Ben snapped, “but we’re not in the First Order anymore. If you want to stay here in the Resistance with me, you need to follow General Organa’s rules. And I’m rather certain you’re going to stay here, because we all know that Snoke has found out about your betrayal by now, so there’s nowhere left to go unless you want to try freelance work.” Talder actually flinched at that, and Artet frowned. “Do what she says. Use common sense to figure out the rest. Am I clear?”

“Yes sir,” the Knights muttered one after another. Hux frowned and grabbed Ben’s hand, pulling him up from his seat. Confused, the Force user nevertheless followed his husband into the forest, not speaking until they were stopped. “What is it?” he asked.

Hux took a breath, hoping that his words wouldn’t come off as hurtful. “Ben, just then…”

“Yes?”

“The way you were talking to the Knights…it reminded me of Kylo Ren.” Ben’s breathing hitched at that, but Hux pressed on. “You realize that you’re no longer the Master of the Knights of Ren, right? That part of your life was left behind when we fled, Ben.”

“I know,” Ben ground out, hands balled into fists. “But when I’m around them…Hux, we relied on each other for years. We built a system to survive; a system that had to work without any of us really thinking about it. In that system, I led. I protected when they needed me to, I brought my fist down when they needed me to. Breaking those habits-“

“Is hard, I know,” Hux gently finished. “I still perk up when I hear someone say ‘general,’ beloved. I still measure time by the Imperial system. But I’ve adapted, Ben. You and the Knights need to as well.” Ben nodded, and Hux smiled as he took hold of Ben’s arm. “Come here.”

Ben allowed himself to be tugged into his husband’s embrace, and the two shared a gentle kiss in the privacy of the forest. Hux attempted to pull away once he’d kissed Ben’s lips red and puffy, only to be pulled back in for another round of gentle kisses all over his face. By the time he was able to pull away and tug his husband back towards the Knights, Ben was grinning and the redhead was trying his best not to look too much like a lovesick idiot as well. “They’ll be good,” Ben stated as they walked back. “You’ll see.”

Upon their return, Mahara gave the two of them a onceover, paying particular attention to the state of Hux’s attire, and frowned. “Pfass,” she swore as she handed a few credits over to Talder’s waiting hand.

Ben made sure not to look at his husband after that, partially because he was sure Hux was glaring and blushing, but mostly because he was certain that seeing Hux like that would make him burst into fits of laughter.

-n-

After that initial fiasco, things went much better with the Knights. They adapted themselves to Resistance protocol, worked to follow the rules, and even tried to volunteer their services wherever they could. Hetti, for example, offered to train Rey in armed combat.

It had started one day when Rey was practicing her maneuvers in the outdoor open training area that she loved to use. Hetti and Baru had been passing by on their way to the MESS hall, but while Baru kept going straight past the field, his sister suddenly halted when she noticed what Rey was doing. Rey continued her exercises, practicing swinging and blocking with her staff, but found it increasingly hard to do so with Hetti’s eyes glued to her body. Eventually she stopped and crossed the field, frowning at the older woman. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“You were never properly trained, were you?” she bluntly asked. Rey frowned, preparing to defend herself with a few colorful and carefully chosen words, but Hetti Ma kept going. “I’m not attempting to be insulting, Lady Jedi. I can simply tell when someone has learned the basics to survive with a weapon as opposed to receiving formal training. The former is largely sufficient for day to day survival, but utterly inferior to the latter.”

“Are you just here to stand around and insult me?” Rey demanded angrily, although her cheeks had flushed a bit at the ‘Lady Jedi’ title.

“Not unless you’d like me to,” Hetti replied. “I merely thought I’d mention that my weapon of choice is a quarterstaff, and I could doubtless help you hone your skills.”

Rey hmmphed and turned her back to the Knight. “Thanks, but I think I’ll manage.” Hetti said nothing and walked off a moment later, presumably to rejoin her brother.

The next day, Rey was surprised to see Hetti and Talder sparring on the field when she came out to train. Hetti was wielding her quarterstaff, a great metal monstrosity that stood taller than her, while Talder was attempting to attack with the massive electrified club that he liked to carry around. Rey had to admit, she was rather impressed; although Talder clearly had the advantage in terms of size and raw muscle, Hetti was holding her own and even seemed to have her opponent on the defensive. Her movements were tight and quick, leaving almost no openings as Talder came after her again and again. It was nearly enough to make Rey blush; she could tell which quarterstaff user had the better skills with their weapon, and it certainly wasn’t the one with Force powers.

“Good afternoon, Lady Jedi,” Hetti called out as she motioned to Talder. The man stopped and stepped back, moving to stand near the edge of the field; it looked like they were taking a break. “Were you hoping to use this area now?”

“I know what you’re trying to pull,” Rey stated, “And it’s pointless. I only train with my staff out of habit. Jedis fight with lightsabers, you know.”

For the first time that Rey could recall, Hetti actually smiled. “If that is the issue, I have a suggestion, Lady Jedi. Go into the old Republic archives and look up a certain Sith by the name of Darth Maul.” Rey bristled and stormed off, feeling somewhat patronized by the woman’s tone and smile. And yet, sometime later that afternoon, she found herself making a request to Hutu to call an archivist on Coruscant and send over whatever files he could find on this Darth Maul, whoever that was supposed to be.

The next day, if one had happened to cross the training field at any time between sunrise and sunset, they would have seen a rising Jedi pupil fiercely battling against a former agent of the First Order, both wielding quarterstaffs and working up an impressive sweat.

-n-

Hetti wasn’t the only one who found a niche for her skills. Talder Ren, with his imposing presence and chilling voice, soon became a valuable asset to Leia during their more trying negotiations. There was one particular instance wherein General Organa had been attempting to negotiate space to make a Resistance base on a planet controlled by Zygerrians, and although they were willing to rent out the property (for a decent fee), they insisted that Leia allow their slaving operations to continue within the near vicinity of the base. Weeks of messaging back and forth had managed to make little headway, and Leia eventually arranged to sit down with several ambassadors of Zygerria to try and come to an agreement.

Both feline envoys seemed ready to stand their ground and fight on this matter, right up until Talder strode into the room, towering high over them and looking rather imposing with his mask and all black garb. Any arguments or protests they may have tried to voice were quickly shut down by a few words from the Knight; Leia barely had to do much more than give them a few stern looks of her own. Before Leia had time to grow weary of their presence, the ambassadors had agreed that no, Zygerria really didn’t need to operate their slave trade so close to the base, yes, the Zygerrian council would be more than happy to lower the asking price to let the Resistance use their land, and no, they most certainly did not want to stay for drinks and dinner afterwards.

Later, after the ambassadors had scurried off in fear and Leia was walking back to her ship, she took a moment to appraise Talder Ren. “Not bad,” she commented. “You have much practice looming over people like that?”

Talder shrugged. “A habit I picked up from others.”

“The Knights, you mean.”

Talder nodded. “Ben was the best at having a dark and threatening presence, though.” He tilted his head towards Leia, as if checking to see if his words had upset the general. When she merely nodded and kept walking, he turned his head forward. “Hux used to call him ‘Lord Brooding Buckethead’ when he thought no one was listening.”

For the first time in her life, Leia found herself laughing about something related to her son’s time as Kylo Ren.

-n-

With Hetti at work training Rey and Talder at work “looking imposing” as Leia liked to say, jobs had to be found for the other Knights. Sometimes the placement was obvious; Baru Ma’s skills with electronics had him put in the workshop deep within the bowels of the Resistance. His abilities manifested most spectacularly in his power to salvage all but the most decrepit and ruined of electronics. Honestly, the man could have built a transmitter capable of inter-planetary communications using a broken food re-hydrater and Leia’s personal cleaning droid. It was a testament to his loyalty to the Resistance and Ben that he hadn’t already tried to do so. Artet, given his proficiency in combat, was tasked with sparring and training the cadets who’d come to the Resistance with at least a basic level of fighting, but who needed a little more work before they were truly ready for the field. For those Knights, placement was easy. Others found it a bit harder to find a new role in the Resistance, however.

Lars, a young courier that typically spent his days delivering sensitive, non-transmittable messages or materials across the base, found himself delivering a message to Poe Dameron early one afternoon. He actually rather enjoyed tasks like this; physically carrying things like this made him feel like the secret agent he’d always pretended to be as a child, and he rather liked Poe Dameron as a person anyway.

Approaching Poe’s private quarters, however, he was somewhat surprised to see a brunette with scruffy-looking hair standing outside of the doorway. He belatedly recognized her as Mahara, one of the Knights of Ren, and wondered why she was polishing the barrel of her blaster while loitering outside of Poe and Finn Dameron’s living space like that.

He got his answer a moment later when she jabbed a hand forward straight into his sternum, blocking him from getting any closer to the door. “State your name and business here.”

Lars huffed and pushed her hand away. “I don’t have to answer to you.”

“No, but you might want to answer my good friend Mr. Blaster here,” she shot back, pointing her weapon of choice in his face with a smirk. “Once again, name and business.”

“L-L-Lars from the command center,” he shakily got out, going cross-eyed as he stared down the barrel of the blaster. “I, um, I have a message-“

“Too bad for you then,” Mahara cut in. “It’s naptime. If I let you go inside to deliver that message, you might interrupt naptime. And if you interrupt naptime, the baby will wake up and start fussing instead of sleeping. And if the baby doesn’t sleep, it’ll get mental issues and grow up to be neurotic. You know who else grew up to be neurotic?”

“W-W-Who?”

“General Ginger, or as you like to call him, Hux. Now Lars, I’m sure you’re a nice guy and want to do whatever you can to make Poe and Finn’s lives easier, so ask yourself this; do you really want their precious newborn baby to grow up and turn into a Hux? Hmm? Does that sound like something that would really benefit their lives?”

“No?” Lars squeaked out, not entirely sure what this lunatic was planning to do with him.

“Good, we’re on the same page then,” Mahara said with a smile as she holstered her blaster. “So you can either come back later when naptime’s over, or you can leave the message here and I’ll deliver it when naptime’s over. Either way, no one’s setting foot inside this place until naptime’s done, under penalty of blaster-shot to the face.”

Lars decided to leave the message and bolt, fearing that he might make the mistake of coming back before naptime finished and would thus have to deal with Mahara again. Several other messengers suffered a similar fate, and by the time Poe emerged from his quarters a few hours later, Mahara had a small stack of sensitive materials piled up in front of the door. “Do I even want to know?” he asked as she scooped up the goods and dumped them into his waiting arms.

“Just doing my part to keep Finn and the baby safe, like you asked,” Mahara stated with a smile and a not-strictly-regulation salute to her boss.

Later, Poe would give her a stern lecture on why Resistance members shouldn’t threaten other Resistance members with blasters, even if it was supposedly for a good cause. Even later than that, Finn would bribe her with off-world sweets to keep doing exactly what she’d been doing, so that he and his husband could enjoy a few hours of total peace during the day while their new baby was down for its nap.

Needless to say, within a week every messenger on the base knew exactly when “naptime” was, and gave the Dameron household a wide berth during that time.


	4. Anakin; Or, Final Results

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin's opinion on the Knights, plus the final verdict from Hux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The majority of this chapter is written following Anakin around, so the grammar and language was adjusted appropriately for a small child. Once we're back to the adults, there's a shift again.

Nobody bothered to ask Anakin what he thought of the Knights of Ren. It wouldn’t really matter, seeing as Anakin was just a small child whose opinion on Resistance membership had absolutely no bearing on whether people were allowed to stay or not, and as a result nobody asked. But if they had, they would have discovered that Anakin thought the Knights were the greatest things to ever happen to his world.

For one, they gave him lots and lots of presents. Some of them he wasn’t allowed to play with, like the knife set that Baru and Hetti had gotten for him the first time they’d ever given him anything. But others, like a stuffed rancor to go with his Wookie plush or a giant pelt made of real wampa fur that covered his whole bed, were fantastic. And whenever one of the Knights was sent out on an assignment, they would be sure to bring something back for him, even if it was just a bit of candy from a planet Anakin had never even seen. Efforts to curb the gift-giving by his mama and daddy proved “utterly futile,” which according to grandma Leia meant that it would never ever work in a million bazillion years. Pretty soon Anakin had completely run out of room in his toy chest, and space on his shelves was rapidly vanishing too.

He liked Artet and Mahara quite a lot. They always had funny things to say, and watching them fight in the training room was oh so very exciting because they were so much faster and stronger than anyone else his mama let him watch. Artet usually won, but the things that Mahara would do to try and get the upper hand (like biting his ankle or trying to pull his pants down) always kept the sparring interesting to Anakin, who tended to watch from the safety of his mama’s lap as Ben would call out either encouragements or cover Anakin’s eyes when things got too messy.

Talder was nice, but didn’t talk to him all that much. The large Knight was usually around Leia, helping the general with whatever needed to be done, and thus had little time to spare for Anakin. Whenever he did come by, however, Anakin was guaranteed to get a ride on the Knight’s shoulders, which always made him giggle and laugh at being taller than even his mama. Riding on Talder’s shoulders made him feel like he could tower over the whole world; it was always kind of sad when the Knight eventually set him down.

The twins, Baru and Hetti, were kind of weird. They always talked with each other more than anyone else; half the time, Anakin was pretty sure they forgot he was in the room and completely ignored him. He told his mama this one night, making Ben frown as he helped his son pick out his pajamas for the night. “Anakin, do you remember how I told you that some of mama’s friends were a little different from other people?”

“Yes, but why?” Anakin demanded.

Ben picked up his son and carried him over to his bed. “Baru Ma and Hetti Ma grew up in a place that didn’t like twins.”

“Why not?”

“They thought that when twins were born, it was a sign that a normal person had been split into two people, and one of the twins got most of the good parts while the other twin got most of the bad parts.”

Anakin took a minute to think about this. “Is that true?”

“No, but that’s what people thought. So for a long time, no one wanted to talk to the twins or play with them because they weren’t sure which one was the good twin and which one was the bad twin. So they only talked and played with each other. Even though they have more friends now, sometimes they forget.”

“Oh.” Anakin frowned; now he felt bad for them.

“Hey, it’s ok sweetie,” Ben murmured as he kissed Anakin on the cheek. “We just have to be nice to them, ok?”

“Ok mama.” And so even though Anakin still thought the twins were a little strange, he always tried to be nice to them afterwards.

Scorra was easily his favorite Knight. He was slim, even moreso than Anakin’s daddy, and he always smelled like fresh pine when he picked up Anakin and hugged him or gave him a piggyback ride (which was all the time). Plus, Scorra just understood things that normal adults didn’t quite get. Like, he knew that sometimes adults needed to lay down on the floor while children dumped all their toys on them, or that sometimes cookies were meant to be pilfered fresh from a tray, or that some nights required two or three bedtime stories instead of just one. And while the other Knights eventually built up a sturdy resistance to Anakin’s charms, a pouty lip or flutter of the eyes still worked wonders on Scorra.

The one thing Scorra didn’t really seem to like was jokes. One day, when Anakin and Scorra had been playing outside, the little boy had decided it would be funny to hide from the Knight and see what happened. So he asked Scorra to collect some pinecones that were hanging on a branch above their heads, waited until the Knight was distracted, and then took off into the forest to hide under a fallen tree. He made sure to be completely hidden from sight and clapped a hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t be heard.

Minutes later, he heard the sound of Scorra approaching, calling out, “Anakin?”

The boy giggled but stayed hidden as Scorra’s legs came into view from his hiding place. Oh, this would be so fun!

“Anakin?” This time the voice was louder, and sounded very worried. “Anakin!”

Suddenly Scorra was running around, frantically calling out his name and swearing. Anakin watched with wide eyes as Scorra suddenly froze and dropped to his knees, curling up into a ball on the forest floor and tearing at his hair with his hands. “Nononononono KRIFFING HELL NO!”

By this point, Anakin was really and truly scared to see his favorite babysitter so upset. Scorra never raised his voice, not even when Anakin was in trouble. Worse, the waves of love and happiness that Scorra normally gave off around him had been replaced by fear and anger, which Anakin hated. And it was all his fault. Extremely anxious by now, the boy scrambled out from his hiding place and hurried towards the Knight. “Scorra!”

The Knight jerked his head up, blue-green eyes wide as he caught sight of Anakin. The little boy flung himself at the Knight’s chest a second later, crying. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to play!” he sobbed, soaking the Knight’s shirt with his tears.

Scorra squeezed him tight and hushed him, though what really calmed Anakin was feeling the fear and anger from the other melt away. He could feel the love now, wrapping around him like a wonderful blanket sent through the Force. “It’s all right, sweetie,” Scorra soothed in a shaky voice, rocking the boy back and forth. “You just scared me, is all. I thought someone or something bad took you away.” Anakin kept crying, and Scorra eventually had to pick him up and carry him back to the base. From then on, Anakin never tried to hide from Scorra, even if he’d do it to the other Knights.

But bad days like that were really rare for Anakin and Scorra. Most of the time, whenever the little boy was watched by the Knight, they’d have a good day full of playing, adventures, and meals that daddy would probably have said contained too many sweets and not enough vegetables.

And the best part was, Anakin got to play with Scorra all the time. Grandma Leia had given all the other Knights jobs that they had to do, but Scorra was only ever tasked with watching Anakin. The boy wasn’t quite sure why, but he suspected it had something to do with the talks his mama, daddy, and grandma would have together late at night when they thought he was asleep. He’d only ever really paid attention to one of these talks, and that was because he heard Scorra’s name.

“Ben, are you sure we can trust Scorra to look after our son?” Hux had asked at the table that night. Ben and Leia were sitting across from him, looking over something on a datapad in front of them. Anakin hadn’t been able to fall asleep just yet, and was listening quietly in the next room while watching the adults through a crack in his not quite sealed door.

“Hux, Scorra is the one person I’d trust more than anyone else for this,” Ben promised him, reaching across the table to squeeze the redhead’s hand. Anakin had smiled at that; his mama was so kind and trusting of people.

Leia nodded gently at the comment, eyes still glued to her datapad. “Given what we know about his upbringing…at the very least, he’d be particularly inclined to prevent any harm from coming to a child.”

“I take it you dug a bit into his background?” Hux asked.

Leia nodded her head and sighed, pushing the datapad away. “I’d heard about children like him. Genetically modified to suit certain aesthetic ‘tastes,’ but this…”

“So, his eyes really are that color?” Hux inquired.

Ben nodded, frowning. “Apparently the color, along with his physique, put him in rather high demand from a young age.”

“Force,” Leia whispered softly.

“You never did tell me,” Hux cut in. “How exactly did he end up with the Knights?”

“Snoke told us to murder a certain brothel owner,” Ben explained. “Apparently his business was a front to pass on government secrets to the Republic. When we got there, he begged for his life, offered me the choice of any of the workers there…” the light overhead flickered, a sure sign that Ben’s emotions were bleeding over to his Force abilities. (Anakin shuddered; he hated when his mama got like this). “The owner told me that one of their workers, Alle, was rather popular, and he had the means to ensure that whatever we did wouldn’t leave any permanent marks-“

“Ben,” Hux warned as a cup near his husband’s fingertips began to warp into a twisted lump of metal.

Ben took a deep breath, and a moment later the lights stopped flickering. “I killed him and took Alle with me. Changed his name to Scorra and made sure Talder trained him properly. He’s been absolutely loyal to me ever since.”

By that point Anakin’s eyelids were getting rather heavy, and he didn’t really understand what words like ‘brothel’ or ‘permanent’ meant, so he decided to crawl back into bed. But after that night, it seemed like Scorra was always there to watch him when daddy or mama had work to do.

The only time he didn’t like being around Scorra was when the Knight was training in hand-to-hand combat. Anakin had gone to watch him a couple of times with daddy, because mama and Scorra liked to spar together. And whenever they fought, something in Scorra changed. His body would relax, his face would go blank, and all of his emotions would vanish for a time. Anakin had once watched his mama cover a steaming pot of soup with a lid, hiding all the steam from sight. He felt like that was what Scorra was doing whenever he fought, only with his feelings.

“Scorra, I don’t like it when you fight,” Anakin told him one afternoon as the Knight was laying him down for his nap.

“Why’s that, honey?” Scorra asked, tucking the little boy in.

“Because you stop being nice when you fight people,” Anakin explained.

Scorra laughed at this and ruffled Anakin’s hair, making the boy squeak in indignation. “Anakin, you can’t be nice when you fight people. You have to be tough, so that you can keep bad people from hurting the ones you love.”

“Do you have to fight a lot of bad people?” Anakin asked as Scorra smoothed his hair back down.

“Sometimes.”

“Like who?”

“Well, Stormtroopers, other people fighting for the First Order-“

“Snoke?”

Scorra’s hand froze for a moment, and then he pulled it away while nodding. “Yes. Snoke.”

Anakin had never met this Snoke person, but he knew that he didn’t like him one bit. No one would tell him who Snoke was, but he’d picked up little bits and pieces when the adults were talking and forgot he was there.

Snoke was the reason Mahara was scared to sleep alone.

Snoke was the reason Artet had a scar going down his whole back that hurt whenever he laughed too hard.

Snoke was the reason Grandpa Han was dead.

Snoke was the reason that sometimes, mama would wake up in the middle of the night and cry in the kitchen while sipping tea.

Snoke was the reason that sometimes, when daddy’s friends went to fight, they didn’t come back.

Everything about Snoke scared Anakin; sometimes he’d have nightmares where a faceless, shapeless monster would try to grab him and take him away from his family. “Scorra?”

“Yes honey?”

“Are you scared of Snoke?”

“…” Even though he’d just been tucked in, Scorra carefully sat Anakin up and pulled the little boy into his lap, holding him tight. “Sometimes. But when you’re dealing with a really strong enemy, it would be stupid not to be a little scared.”

“So how do you stop being scared?”

Scorra smiled and kissed Anakin in the middle of his head. “By remembering that you have people who need you to be brave. I’m scared sometimes, but your mama and daddy and everyone else in the Resistance need me to be strong, so Snoke doesn’t hurt us.”

“Sometimes I think mama and daddy get scared,” Anakin admitted, nuzzling his face into Scorra’s chest. “But they still fight him. Is that why?”

“Yes sweetie, that’s exactly why. They want to keep you and Han and Jaina safe.”

“Ok. Scorra?”

“Yes?”

“Read me a story?”

Scorra nodded and reached for the datapad full of Anakin’s stories that always rested on the little table beside his bed. And as Scorra read some tale of a brave Jedi warrior saving a planet from a band of pirates, Anakin thought about all the people in the Resistance that needed him to be strong. He thought about the Knights of Ren who spoiled him with presents and taught him how to make a fire or send a secret code that no one else could decrypt. He thought about Uncle Luke and Grandma Leia, who’d lost so many people but still wanted to fight. He thought of his mama and daddy, who had had to run away from Snoke to keep Anakin safe (for reasons the little boy still didn’t completely understand). He thought about Jaina and Han, who were just now starting to pull themselves upright and try to walk.

“ _I can be brave_ ,” he thought, eyes drooping shut. “ _I can be brave for them_.”

-n-

Once Anakin was asleep, Scorra stepped out of his room and closed the door behind him. He was a bit surprised to see both Hux and Ben in the kitchen sipping at cups of caff, and nodded to them as he walked in. “Work finish early?”

“Yes,” Hux confirmed. “Thank you for watching Anakin; Leia’s fine to take the twins, but…”

“It can be hard to watch children when there’s an age difference,” Scorra concluded. “It’s fine. I’ll be here at breakfast tomorrow then?”

“Thank you,” Hux confirmed, and a moment later Scorra walked out. The redhead sighed quietly once he and his husband were alone again, giving Ben a gentle smile. “So far, your predictions seem to be going well. The Knights have been nothing but an asset to the Resistance.”

“I told you,” Ben said with a smirk. “You ought to listen to me more.”

Hux snorted and rolled his eyes. Force only knew what would happen if he let Ben start to think his ideas were anything but risky and half-mad. He glanced towards the door that Scorra had just left through, and then looked back to his husband. “Be honest with me, beloved. It wasn’t just the Force telling you to trust the Knights, was it?”

Ben’s face darkened a bit as he looked down into the mug of caff in front of him. “Do you know what the Knights and I all have in common?”

“An inexplicable ability to drive military personnel up the wall?” Hux quipped.

“We’re scared to be alone,” Ben muttered. “We can manage by ourselves just fine, if need be, but all of us tend to reach out and try to forge bonds with others. Snoke could sense that, and he’d use it against us.” Hux reached out to take Ben’s hand in his own, and the Force user took a minute to collect himself before going on. “When we failed, we were always punished. And more severe failings of course necessitated more severe punishments. Sometimes Snoke would deliberately send us on missions where we were likely to incur causalities; but other times…well, a Knight would go to him and simply never come back. At some point, I’d feel them flicker out from the Force.”

Hux gaped at Ben. “He…he killed his own men like that? Directly?”

“I don’t know,” Ben answered with a shrug. “Maybe he hired someone to do it. Maybe he sabotaged their ship so it exploded in space. But they would always be called to him, and then something would happen to make them not come back.” He sipped at his caff, and his hands were shaking slightly. “It wasn’t always immediate. Sometimes they’d be gone for weeks or months before he’d end their lives. And sometimes, a person who was gone for that long might come back completely unharmed. We had no way of knowing when a summons would be a death sentence or not.”

“Ben…”

“So we learned not to fail,” Ben pressed on. “We learned to do whatever it took to avoid Snoke’s punishments. And the time that we had together was so very precious, because we knew that a single word from Snoke could take it away forever.” Ben sniffed and set down his caff. “Do you know how much leaving them like we did hurt, Hux? Making them worry if I was alive or dead, just whisked away like what Snoke would do-“

Hux was across the table in a flash and holding a crying Ben in his arms a moment later. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into Ben’s hair. “But we had to do it, Ben.”

“I know,” Ben replied with a nod. “But it still hurts.” He sniffled a bit more, and then gently pulled away. “That’s why I know they won’t betray me, Hux. They just wanted me back. They just wanted all of us to be together, and have that togetherness for as long as we can before someone comes along to try and take that away. And it might be Snoke; realistically, some of them are probably going to die before this war is over. But they’re not going to do anything to hasten the death of another Knight.”

Hux nodded and gently wrapped his arms around Ben, standing behind the former Knight of Ren who was still sitting. They took a minute to just think, Hux staring off into space and Ben sipping at his caff. Eventually, Hux broke the silence. “Ben?”

“Yes?”

“The Knights were never stationed for long in one area, right?”

Ben shook his head. “No. We had a few places here and there that we frequented more than others, but no one permanent base of operations.”

Hux nodded; he’d been hoping to hear that. “Would they still have access to these places?”

“Yes, why?”

Hux moved to stand in front of Ben, taking his husband’s hand into his own. “I was just thinking…in the event that something happened to me, and something happened to you, and Leia or the others here on the base became compromised…do you think we could trust the Knights to get our children to safety? Maybe not all of them together, but just one or two-“

“Absolutely,” Ben stated. “Our children are like an extension of me to them, just as you are. Part of keeping me safe means making sure that you and the little ones are unharmed.”

“All right,” Hux said, and he was surprised to feel a weight slipping off his shoulders. He’d always been worried about what might happen to Anakin and the twins if he, Ben, and the Resistance as a whole were to become compromised; at least now there was a backup plan. “We should probably make a plan with them.”

“Tomorrow,” Ben suggested. “To give us time to think. And besides…”

“Besides?”

“Anakin will be asleep for at least another hour,” Ben said with a smile that Hux knew all too well. “And the twins are with mom, so…”

Now it was Hux’s turn to smile. “Oh.”

And as they scurried off to their bedroom, being sure to lock the door so Anakin couldn’t accidentally walk in and become scarred for life, Hux and Ben felt really and truly at peace.


End file.
